'From Wikipedia to the Moon in six years': Team Indus wants to land on the lunar surface by 2017

To plan a mission to the Moon, most people would assemble a team of experienced space experts. This isn't the case if you are from Team Indus.

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"None of the founding team at Team Indus has a space background or deep pockets," Sheelika Ravishankar tells WIRED2016. The only Indian team competing in the Google Lunar XPRIZE is attempting to launch a rocket to Earth's natural satellite, land on its surface, and let a rover roam on its surface.

Ravishankar, who leads Team Indus' Outreach and People programs, says the team is going "from Wikipedia to the Moon in six years". When Team Indus started on its mission one of the first things it did was to Google 'How to build a rocket'.

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It has come a long way since the early days. The team, numbering almost 100, will launch its spacecraft inside the Indian space agency's (Indian Space Research Organisation) Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket in December 2017.

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From there it will begin a journey to the Moon. "The PSLV, in just 12 minutes from launch, will take the spacecraft to an orbit of 880 km x 70,000 km around the earth," Team Indus says.

Ravishankar explains the spacecraft will travel around the Earth twice before being flung from orbit until it reaches the Moon. After several trips around the satellite the Indus craft will be slowed down. "Descent is the most critical part of the mission," she says. If the descent goes wrong a spacecraft will be destroyed.

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Once the craft lands on the Moon it will release its rover. The 10kg micro-rover will then attempt to drive across the surface and send a signal back to Earth. Those that support the private organisation's effort to get to the Moon will be rewarded: "Our supporters and sponsors can drive the rover when it is on the Moon's surface".

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As part of the XPRIZE Google competition, the first team of those taking part to land on the Moon, travel 500m with a rover and transmit high-res images to Earth will win $30 million (£23m).

Earlier this year the Indus team started to tap into millennials to help it send experiments to the Moon. As part of its Lab2Moon competition, the group will send a soda-can-sized experiment to the Moon with its rover next year.

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More than 3,000 teams from 12 countries registered for the competition. In total, 20 of the suggested experiments will be long-listed and eventually whittled down to a winner.

Ravishankar explained, at the time, what Team Indus was looking for in a winner: "One of the very first things you have to look at is seeing how you would have sustainable life on the Moon. Even if you want to explore the rest of the universe, the Moon is the logical first stop.

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"The theme is to imagine, design, and build a project that would enable sustainability and allow for sustainable life on the Moon. It could be a seed you want to grow, a water experiment, or a fire experiment,"

Overall, a total of 13 teams are still in the XPRIZE competition and three (other than Indus) – SpaceIL, Moon Express and Synergy Moon – have made a verified launch agreement. This means they have signed deals with companies willing to send their crafts to space. To stay in the competition, the launch contracts have to be completed before the end of 2016.